


The Lioness Speaks

by Elleth



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: F/F, Fictional Religion & Theology, Gen, Jealousy, Original Character-centric, Possessive Behavior, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-29 16:47:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20085499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elleth/pseuds/Elleth
Summary: Berúthiel's white cat tells her story.





	The Lioness Speaks

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Solanaceae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Solanaceae/gifts).

> I hope you enjoy this! ♥

In Gondor they called my mistress Berúthiel. This is not her true name: Although given by me and accepted in honour of me, she was born Tamar Benish Armon, princess of Kemet. 

I was never born at all. I came at the One's command and followed the call of the one most here know as Yavanna, for a while, roaming in the wild lands under the light of Illuin and Ormal, until Darkness came and overtook it. It was more agony to fight than to allow it, and so my teeth grew long, my claws sharp, my eyes fierce. My breath became the desert. For a long time slaughter was all that I relished as I grew great lapping up the blood of all that met me. Often I walked alone, sometimes with a pride of lesser beings that flocked to me. 

I was given many names in that time. 

The Mighty. She Who Mauls. Lady of Slaughter. The Queen of Wrath. 

My freedom ended when the Dark Lord returned from the West. I had become his creature in accepting the changes he made on me, and when he called, I was compelled to answer, and to enter his service, mightier even than me. I will not speak of those years.

In serving Morgoth, I was soon supplanted by a spirit of like power and affinities who rose until he stood second only to our Master, until ruin came to Angband and the sea washed its filth clean. I bounded away before the armies and seas, and found refuge in the South of the world. 

I watched from afar as Sauron attempted to gain power over the Elves, sulked in defeat in his new stronghold, gave in to his anger and came to Númenor-That-Was, and caused its destruction, but not all of his work was lost with the island. His cult had spread to the coasts long before the Ruin, and it thrived, if changed, in hidden places while his spirit licked its wounds and tried to regain its strength hidden in the East.

The southern deserts remained my home, and those who crossed my path became my nourishment, their blood my water. Until then I had cared little for worship, but petty jealousy from the past Age reared its head, and when I came upon an aged priestess of Sauron's cult, I compelled her to speak before I was going to take her life. 

She threw herself into the sand at my feet, and bowed to me. She let me set my teeth on her throat, and swore loyalty on pain of death. I could have eaten her in a single bite. 

Instead, she offered her worship to me, and I took it. 

She became my first priestess, and she became a queen upon a lion throne. 

When she died, making herself her final sacrifice to me as she felt the end coming upon her, and I gave her a gentle death to feast on her after, her power passed to her daughter, and after to her daughter's daughter, and I stayed with them, and protected them, striding at the forefront of their battles as the Queens of Kemet conquered like they were lionesses themselves. 

When Tamar Benish Armon came into power, she built me my greatest temple yet, where I lay on silk cushions in a garden of statues of myself and my victims as I feasted on them. She gave me to hunt, those who hated her and hated me. She ousted the priests of Sauron who still held some measure of power in Kemet, driving them off into the desert, where I found them wandering lost, and feasted on them. 

More than any other, save the first priestess, Tamar dedicated her life to me, less out of fear and more out of love. In the guise of a human, I came to her chambers at night, as I had never done before, and made her mine. 

When the people of Gondor came to our shores, defeating the Corsairs that had never truly been a threat to us, and we professed mock-gratitude to them, I learned that they, too, were enemies of Sauron, and once again old jealousy reared its head, and the possibility to humble him as he was regaining power enticed me against better counsel. It took little conviction for Tamar to heed me. 

She and Tarannon Falastur were engaged to be wedded soon, unite their realms, and increase the greatness of both of them. I was to go to Gondor with her, and stood with her before our people as they farewelled their Queen and their Goddess both. I licked tears from many faces that day, and found them nearly as sweet as blood. 

Until then, Tamar had been mine alone. 

Until then, she had received me into her bed, and no man or woman other than me.

Until then, she had worshipped me alone. Until then she had loved me alone. 

Tarannon, however, she loved dearly, against all expectations, and although she was unhappy in the King's seat by the sea, he built her another house to dwell in. Where I had had a temple, silk and blood and gold to my name in Kemet, I merely had a statue garden there, and had to share her love that I felt slipping through my claws like water. Tarannon, for all his professed enmity of Sauron and his worshippers, also held no regard for other gods, save the so-called Powers in the West, and if he suspected that I had once been of the Maiar, as he called them, he never spoke of it in my hearing. He was no use to me in further humbling Sauron, and it seemed that all I was to him was a glorified pet, a stone of contention between the two of them. 

I built an invisible temple of my own on that. 

By my power I kept her childless when they both wished for an heir. I taught her of wrath as a strength, giving her her new name for the people of Gondor to call her. Through it all, I was at her side, consoling in measure, enough for her to keep me with her.

When she sent her black cats, my smaller sisters, out to spy against the distrust she met with from the folk of Gondor, I took their shape and both followed and directed them, and where they would have found nothing of note, I created unrest with a flick of my tail to tell my mistress. Intrigues grew out of small seeds, and Berúthiel's anger grew as she retreated further from the life of Gondor. 

They began cursing us, and cursing her. It was easy to spread rumors of witch-work and drain a little Tarannon's life when I could - whenever he visited her and slept beside her in her chambers, until he became frail before his time and no healer could aid him, while Berúthiel remained radiant and young, and all blame fell squarely at her feet. 

When, even in her wrath, she proclaimed her innocence, she never spoke anything but the truth. How much she knew of my machinations, and how much she believed, I neither asked nor cared to know. It was enough that in the end, and to save his own life, Tarannon exiled her, granting her - no doubt out of fear of what should befall if he took his revenge - a ship to have her die on sea, under a sickle moon that was no doubt chosen for its resemblance to a blade, an omen all of its own.

But she had me. I would see her ship safely home. 

My temple and her bed awaited, and I would let none come between us again.

**Author's Note:**

> A ton of inspiration for the Maia who is Berúthiel's white cat was taken from the Egyptian lion-goddess Sekhmet, including some of the titles in the fic and the fact that she'd over time change into a smaller, tamer cat version of herself as Bastet. _Kemet_ itself is one of the names of Ancient Egypt that I've stolen for Berúthiel's unspecified inland kingdom (shhh, I know it has a coastline in the real world).
> 
> Tamar and Benish Armon are the names that Tolkien had considered and discarded for Berúthiel. They sounded like a perfectly nice name to me taken together.


End file.
